Follow the Money | September 10, 2026 | Hour 2

SPEAKER_1 (0:12)

This is Follow the Money with Mitch Moss and Pauly Howard on VSiN.

Mitch Moss (0:18)

Good to have you on board. Thanks for watching, as always, on YouTube TV, listening on SiriusXM, Channel 189, iHeartRadio, TuneIn Radio or any of our great affiliates. Busy hour coming up, we'll do a little soccer, bottom of the hour, Meat Man is going to join us.

Much more on tonight's game, and we'll continue talking here as we begin the hour. Paul Charchian still on the Progressive Guest Line, Fantasy Football Hall of Famer. New podcast is excellent, called Fantasy Football World. Let's go with tonight's game first overall, George Kittle. The news came down last night that he is going to be active in this game tonight. Don't know how many snaps he's going to get overall, but how are you looking at the tight end situation here for the 49ers? By the way, both guys, Tonjes and Kittle, had good games against the Rams last year.

Paul Charchian (1:02)

They did. They absolutely did. You're correct about that. In fact, in the two matchups, San Francisco tight end scored three times in the two matchups with the Rams last year and Tonjes scored as well. And so the way I'm playing this, you know, George Kittle is off the injury report, but there's still a lot of risk. You know, what's Kittle's snap count going to look like? It's certainly not going to be full. Has he lost speed like most people coming off Achilles surgery do?

You know, my finger in the wind is that Kittle's going to play less than half the snaps in his first game back from his torn Achilles. And that puts back up Jake Tonjes on the field a lot. And so I'm angling towards him for first touchdown at 50 to one and the anytime touchdown at seven to one. You know, last year when Kittle missed most of the first six games, you know, on my segments here, we were hitting Tonjes all the time and he averaged six targets, four catches, 37 yards and he scored in three of those six games in the two games between these teams last year, as I mentioned, Niners through three touchdowns and tight ends. And you know, these, the Rams cornerbacks, their new cornerbacks are sensational. We're going to talk about them more in a minute. And the path of least resistance for Brock Purdy might be just to avoid cornerbacks all together, go to the tight end position where you're going to get safeties and linebackers that are far easier.

All right.

Mitch Moss (2:23)

Love it.

McCaffrey rushing. We documented earlier in the show charge that in the year McCaffrey's had really good games going back against the Rams, tons of targets, tons of catches. The numbers are beefed up as a result of that. What do you, what do you think about his rushing yards tonight?

Paul Charchian (2:38)

So the line is a tantalizing 59 and a half, be 59 and a half just it's a begging for the over. I, you know, I don't know, but I would guess that the over is drawing 80% of the action on this 59 and a half. Just, yeah, feel so, feel so over. We're going to go contrary and we're going to under the 59 and a half. Rams held them to under and way under last year, held them to 30 rushing yards in one game, 57 rushing yards in the under game. Other game he finished CMC finished last year with three straight unders to end the season. And you know, I was thinking of myself as I was plotting my strategy here on this Christian McCaffrey under 59 and a half, that I bet McCaffrey is better early in the season than he is later in the season because he's fresher. And at his age, that's going to be really important. But last year, he opened the season going under 59 and a half rushing yards in five of the first six games. So we didn't start well at all last year, if that's any indication. But here's what I really want to impart on you guys.

Christian McCaffrey is not the running back we think he is. I want to give you some of the key metrics about Christian McCaffrey that nobody talks about. Last year, he finished 31st in success rate for running backs, 33rd in stuff rate, 37th in miss tackle rate, and 26th in yards after contact. And this is among running backs who got at least 100 carries. This is Christian McCaffrey. Everybody thinks he's going to be like second or third or fifth in all of those stats. He's in the 30s.